I’ve been playing around with the idea of doing an Inuyasha songfic for a while now, but every song I thought about doing had always been done before, or didn’t fit properly, or else something else would come up and I just wouldn’t have time to write it. Then a couple of days ago, I heard this song playing on the radio. It had always been something of a favourite of mine, but I hadn’t heard it in so long I almost forgot it. Anyway, I thought it was perfect for how Inuyasha would likely feel, and so I started writing.

Disclaimer: I neither own Inuyasha nor the song ‘Love Gives, Love Takes’. Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, and Love Gives, Love Takes belongs to The Corrs and Atlantic Records.

Inuyasha sat in the branches of the old cherry tree near the well. While a to a casual observer he might have looked peaceful, in reality he was deep in thought and not all of those thoughts were exactly pleasant. He was trying to sort through the conflicting emotions he had been feeling for the last few years, especially those about a certain young priestess from the future.

Inuyasha was sure how his life could have come to this, how he could have let himself fall into this same trap not only once, but twice. It seemed to him that it was only a few years ago that he was all alone, free of the heartache and the burden that love brought with it. He realised that in reality that the time he was thinking about was over half a century ago, but it certainly didn’t seem that way to him. For him, the fifty years he spent sealed to the God Tree by Kikyo’s arrow had been but a short nap.

Kikyo. He had loved her so much, so much that he would have willing become human for her. If that wasn’t devotion, becoming something he hated for the woman he loved, he didn’t know what was. When she had seemingly betrayed him, it had hurt more than any wound he had ever received. He had vowed then and there that he was done with love, that he would never open himself up to that pain again.

Just when I thought it was safe

You found me in my hiding place

But then, Kagome had found him, both literally and metaphorically. She had stumbled across him when he was sealed to the tree and freed him, but that was not all she did. She, and she alone saw through the façade he had build around himself. The villagers and everyone else they met seemed perfectly willing to believe he was the monster and villain he tried to pretended to be in order to protect himself from getting to close to anyone else again. But Kagome, even from the very begging she had seen through that from almost the very beginning. The fact that she couldn’t bring herself to believe that he was a bad guy when she freed him from his seal, even with Kaede telling her not to, spoke volumes to the Hanyou. Even from the start, she had seen him as a person, believing him to be honourable and kind but with a painful past. He would never be able to find the words to tell her how much her faith and trust meant to him.

I’d promised never again

I wouldn’t give my heart but then

He had tried to keep his vow at first. He had tried to hate her, keep her at a distance. It helped that she looked so much Kikyo and Kaede said that she was her reincarnation, at least at first. He had hang onto his last recollections of Kikyo, as the vengeful betrayer who had deceived him and then trapped him on that damn tree for fifty years of his life. But he couldn’t keep that up for long.

Closer, closer I moved near you

The way I want you makes me fear you

As time went by, Inuyasha started to see not the similarities between Kagome and Kikyo but the differences. The way Kagome’s eyes were wider, how her nose turned up more instead of being straight and elegant, hair wavy and wild while Kikyo’s was always straight and under strict control. But most all, he noticed the differences in their attitudes. Kagome was warm and friendly while Kikyo was cold and reserved. Kagome couldn’t hide her emotions to save her life, and Kikyo couldn’t seem to show them. Kagome welcomed basically everyone into her heart, Kikyo repeatedly tried to shut everyone out. But most important of all, Kagome accepted and even embraced the fact that he was a Hanyou, unlike Kikyo who wished nothing more than to be rid of the demon part of him. Inuyasha could help but be drawn more and more to Kagome as time went by. The feelings she evoked in his heart warmed his heart in a way even Kikyo never had, but at the same time the terrified him. He didn’t think he could stand to let anyone else into his heart only to be betrayed again, and so he had tried for so long to keep her at a distance, to afraid to let her get to close.

Love breaks and love divides

Love laughs and love can make you cry

I can’t believe the ways

That love can give

And love can take away

I find I hard to explain

It’s crazy but it’s happening

He tried so hard to keep Kagome out of his heart. He tried to hate her, tried to make her hate him. But none of that worked. He couldn’t explain how Kagome had managed to get past all his defences so easily, many of which even Kikyo hadn’t been able to breach, but somehow she did. It started slowly at first, and by the time he had realised what had happened, it was too late to really stop it.

And I’m falling again

Much farer than I’ve ever been

Inuyasha was once again in love, and this time he was so much more in love with Kagome than he had even been with Kikyo. With Kikyo he had always felt that he had to hold part of himself back, and looking back now he knew he was right. Kikyo had never accepted the fact that he was half Inu Youkai. She had even gone so far as to warn him against being too violent in her presence; as if she herself wasn’t violent in the way she so mercifully purified Youkai. But with Kagome, he freely showed that part of himself all the time and she didn’t seem to have a problem with it. In fact, she had remarked on more than one occasion that she found his Inu side cute. And if the way she reacted to his ears was any indication, she was attracted to the very demonic features Kikyo was determined to get rid of before she was willing to be with him. It wasn’t even his demon side, with Kikyo had always forced himself to remain polite (there early battles not withstanding) and had often held back from expressing his real opinions on certain matters, knowing Kikyo probably wouldn’t approve. With Kagome he was fully himself, and while she might chid him for his bad manners on occasion she had never tried to really change him.

I’m falling deeper than the ocean

I am lost in this emotion

When you considered all of this, it wasn’t surprising that Kagome soon grew to hold a much larger portion of his heart than Kikyo even had. As time went on, Inuyasha found himself all but drowning in his love for Kagome. Even when Kikyo was brought back from the dead and he vowed to protect her, Kagome was always on his mind. He was never far from her when she was in his time, and he missed and worried about her when she was in hers. Although he tried to concentrate on his mission to defeat Naraku and collect all of the Shikon Shards, Kagome was the real driving force behind everything he did.

Loves breaks and love divides

Love laughs and love can make you cry

I can’t believe the ways

That love can give

And love can take away

But the question still remained, what would become of the two of them. Would this love have a happily-ever after attached to it, or would it leave him heartbroken once again?

Love can give

And love can take away

Inuyasha came out of his thoughts with a start, as a very familiar smell. Quickly looking over toward the well, Inuyasha was not surprised to see the very woman from his thoughts emerge from the well. She was struggling with her yellow bag slightly, having obviously overfilled it again. Inuyasha tried to keep a scowl on his face, even though inwardly he was smiling as he jumped over to grab the bag himself. Seeing him and seeing that he had her bag, Kagome gave the Hanyou a brilliant smile that had his heart soaring. Without saying a word, as there was no need, the two started walking side by side to the village.

Loves breaks and love divides

Love laughs and love can make you cry

I can’t believe the ways

That love can give

And love can take away

Inuyasha still didn’t know how this was going to turn out, or whether this love would ultimately give or take. What he did know was that he couldn’t walk away and that he didn’t want to. He wasn’t going to let fear stand in his way. He would see this through to the end and who knew, maybe this time there would be a happier ending.

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